Redundancies

Yesterday we had several two-fers. Two rainstorms, two test drives, two halves of a concert, and we became a two-Honda family.

We were told on Thursday that our only chance of test-driving a Honda Fit was to order one ($$ down, of course) and try it out when it arrived. If we didn't like it, they'd sell it to the next person on the list. They had some on the lot, but those were pre-sold and all the ones arriving in the next month were also pre-sold. My preferred color (vivid blue), wasn't in the queue, and the earliest I could buy something was sometime in mid-August. After doing scads of research and getting financing approved, I was ready to pull the trigger and wanted to do so before Izzy left for points north east and west.

So, Friday AM, I went on the interweb, looking for dealerships within reasonable driving distance that might have something I could test drive. (Note: We'd also tested a couple of Toyotas Thursday, but they weren't making my heart go pitter-pat.) I found another local dealership with (1) Fits in stock, (2) in my preferred color, and (3) available to drive. I guess I hadn't thought that local dealerships of the same car manufacturer would be in competition -- after all, when one Belk's doesn't have the item I want, they call another store in the same company. So, one Honda dealership's lack of helpfulness meant we sought out another. [I got a call from salesman 1 while I was paying for the accessories at dealership 2 -- it was awkward, but he hadn't done anything to let me know that there were possibilities beyond what we were offered the previous night.]

All that diversion is to say that we hopped on Honda 1 (two-wheels) and rode up to the wilds of the northeast section of our fair metropolis, including several miles in a scattered shower. Things went well, and Izzy and I each test drove a Fit. I liked the "fit" of it -- and there was a new one available in blue! Our salesperson managed to get it out of the processing line before the leather seats were installed (we're more cloth seat people), and after the inevitable wait for the finance office, we got keys and drove home on/in two separate Hondas.

Our first trip was to the art museum for an evening with Irish musicians. Sadly, the organizers (a mis-named group) had done little planning for what the musicians would actually do, and the quite-talented musicians were given only 30 minutes in the 2nd set, where the opening group of folks had over an hour. Still, we got to hear three numbers from these folks (newlyweds!), one of which they dedicated to us. Nice.

As we left the Museum, "all the fountains of the great deep [were] broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened" and we got seriously soaked getting to our car. So, no pics yet, since all the lovely external polishing and shining the dealership did is now covered with road splash.

Let's hope this one does as well as our last two cars. (We're keeping the Saturn for emergencies.)